Despite their 17-27 record, the Angels still appear to have enough camaraderie to enjoy moments like this one -- a three-run homer by Alberto Callaspo, below center.

ANAHEIM – Their on-field struggles could have torn them apart by now. They could be pointing fingers, shifting blame around the clubhouse, punching water coolers, walls or even worse: each other.

Losing – we've seen this in sports – has a way of unearthing the ugly in a ballclub.

It happens. But not to the 2013 Angels. Not yet anyway. Or not that we know of.

On Sunday, the morning after a comeback victory and three hours before the start of the next game, reggae music pumped from the Angels clubhouse speakers.

Around a small table in the back of the room sat Angels veteran third baseman Alberto Callaspo, journeyman pitcher Jerome Williams, last week's call-up Billy Buckner and, looking intense beneath the drawn hood of his red sweatshirt, All-Star outfielder Mike Trout.

They were dealing – not with disappointments of the first quarter of their baseball season. They were dealing cards. The game was Pluck, similar to Hearts or Spades but played in teams of two.

Trout's team was ahead. Again. The hyper-competitive Trout needs to win everything from blink contests to baseball. Other players gathered to watch. The guys were loose, some laughing, but all seemingly departed from the elephant in their living room: losing.

You might be wondering why – or maybe even angry to discover that – the Angels aren't spending every second of every day taking extra batting practice, throwing bullpen, studying film, showing fire, exhausting all possible methods and then writing apology letters to each fan for their sorry position in the standings.

They put in extra work. They feel the urgency. And then they have to relax, let talent and skill take over and allow players fill to their roles.

If there is one gold-flecked nugget to be mined from their stumbling 17-27 start – save their current two-game winning "streak" over the low-flying Chicago White Sox – it is that the Angels have remained a Super-Glue-bonded team.

They're hanging tough. They're staying connected in a clubhouse that has become somewhat transient because of player turnover and so many injuries to front-line players. They're seeing new leaders emerge in the absence of departed veteran Torii Hunter.

They're de-stressing by playing cards, pingpong, video games or music during downtime while still committing complete competitive focus to their preparation and games.

"The mood in the clubhouse is good because you still need to have a fun clubhouse even though things aren't going well. You want to stay relaxed and go out there and let it all out on the field," said Angels ace right-hander Jered Weaver, who has been on the disabled list because of a fractured left elbow since April 9.

"We see ourselves as a team that hasn't been playing up to the level of our capabilities. We have a confidence about us still, even though the record is what it is. Everybody is sticking together and we know it's going to take everybody working as a whole to get out of this."

COMING TO THE TABLE

What appeared to revive the flat-lining, 6-14-starting Angels last season was the April 28 arrival of Trout, who would go on to have a historic 2012 and win the AL Rookie of the Year Award.

But around the same time of Trout's call-up, Albert Pujols, the then-first-year Angel but longtime veteran leader in the St. Louis Cardinals clubhouse, went to Manager Mike Scioscia with a special request: He wanted to buy the team a pingpong table.

"Let's have some fun and try to stay loose because you can't always think about the struggles," recalled Pujols about his motivation behind the table. "If you worry all the time, you see guys start pressing and making mistakes. This game is supposed to be fun."

Scioscia recognized this as a valuable "tool," one of the non-baseball diversions that he encourages but – let me make this completely clear – never at the expense of the time, energy or focus devoted to baseball preparation.

Pujols, the nine-time All-Star who played on three World Series teams with the Cardinals, bought the table and had it delivered and installed in the back of the equipment room, a team-only (media-prohibited) area of the clubhouse.

Most Angels turned out to compete on this tiny tennis court. Weaver bought a custom paddle online ("It even came in a case!" he said.) Catcher Hank Conger played "Asian-style, with a lot of head fakes" and practiced with slugger Mark Trumbo in the offseason. Quiet players, among them Peter Bourjos, Howie Kendrick and the newcomer Trout, rose to the top of the wall-mounted leaderboard lined with Velcro jersey numbers.

"Howie and I had some good battles," said Bourjos, who's known for having the team's most vicious spinning serve and nastiest smash. "Trout likes to say that he beat me twice in one day. But I think I was sick that day."

The games elevated their mood, boosted confidence, eased tensions, delivered laughter, formed bonds and helped the Angels become a team. Pujols, who's quicker than you might imagine, even wriggled free of his early-season offensive slump, and the Angels were .500 (26-26) by May 30.

"I met a lot of guys around the pingpong table," said relief pitcher Ernesto Frieri, who was acquired from the San Diego Padres on May 3, 2012. "It's a good way to hang out but I'm not very good at the game. They don't play pingpong in Colombia, so I lost to Albert Pujols and again to Albert Pujols' son."

That's A.J., Alberto Jose, who is 10.

'THERE'S TIME'

Standing at his locker a few feet from the card game on Sunday morning, Frieri pointed at Callaspo and said, "He's the clown, the guy who's smiling, keeping everybody's spirits up through this. Like (shortstop Erick) Aybar, we missed him when he wasn't in the lineup because they are the sparks."

Aybar has intricately choreographed handshakes customized for several of his teammates. Trout, for instance, works through the motions before games in the dugout. Pujols did what looked like a dance with Aybar after a recent home run.

"Everybody is serious," said Aybar, "but we can't sit and feel bad about what happened. We need to live in today, win today, forget yesterday, and remember we are a team that can do this if we relax and have fun."

That's why they play cards. That's why they battle at pingpong. That's why first-year relief pitcher Mark Lowe, whom Frieri calls "the funniest American," lugs his Xbox and a small flat-screen TV onto the team charter plane and gets his new teammates to play video games, among them "NHL" and "Call of Duty."

Scioscia understands that cards, pingpong and video games create interactions that boost positive team chemistry. So, he's good with it "early in the day, before BP, meetings and game prep so there's a focus that builds at game time," he said.

The players appreciate that Scioscia lets them unwind a little. But they also know their priorities and remain committed to Scioscia's message du jour: "Grind it out."

"The clubhouse chemistry is nice to have and something to we pay a lot of attention to, but the critical element is what's happening on the field."

Weaver, despite being on the mend, has watched every game, home and away, sitting front and center along the dugout railing. He encourages and claps for his teammates, always wishing he could be out there on the mound, fighting alongside them.

Weaver's constant and supportive presence in and out of the clubhouse has "been huge" and "uplifting" for the players to see, Conger said. Aybar, Callaspo and Kendrick have stepped up to be more vocal in the absence of last season's veteran anchors such as Hunter, Vernon Wells and Dan Haren.

"It's not just one person but everyone coming together and working off each other," Weaver said. "We just need to get through this because we did last year and we saw what Oakland did last year, struggling at the start and then winning 94 games."

The injured, the Angels say, will return and make the team better. The under-performance streaks will end and make the team better. Surviving this will make the team better.

They just need to stay together.

"It's never over. It's a long season, and I know it's kind of late to be saying that now. But there's time," Weaver said. "It's just going to take one game to snap out of it and hopefully get something rolling."

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